Volvo OR - Leg 3, Day 8 - Latest from the Roaring Forties
by Sail-World.com/NZ 19 Dec 2017 12:26 GMT
20 December 2017
Various scribes across the seven boat Volvo Ocean Race fleet pen their impressions of the major incidents and happenings aboard over the past 24 hours - the injury to Annie Lush - the leaders gybing along the Ice Exclusion Zone - Scallywag's crew go up the learning curve - and James Blake on AkzoNobel's gybe and repairs.
2100hrs UTC 19 Dec, 2017 - Latest from Team Brunel: An MIA
"Attention, attention all crew here [is] your captain speaking. The weather forecast at 46 south, wind direction 330-320, 18-20 knots, sea state moderate rough, visibility poor. Closest enemy 24 miles straight in front.
"Task: we have to lure them in. It is a good day to do a surveillance flight today to check if no more whales are on our path and any other bogies nearby, so we are sending our drone El Toro in the air."
"Flight deck to tower: we are having an issue with one of the rotors, we need a replacement asap!”
"GET IT FIXED.”
After swift action by the ground crew, the pilot gets El Toro launched in the sky.
"Nothing to report from El Toro, it all looks clear, no whales.”
Then the message from tower: “Two bogies coming in fast, be aware El Toro.”
From El Toro to tower: "Holy crap, can AFFIRM it is a huge one coming in but with three wingmen. One second: can affirm an Albatross and three black storm birds, they look mean.”
From the tower "Get the hell back on deck, beware of all the antennae, we are rolling like mad, but you have done this so many times."
“Copy that, permission for landing.”
"Affirmative: Watch out, watch out......... you are going to hit us, you are going to hit..." ...and with a big ban,g the rotors came off El Toro and she plunged into the grey ocean.
Evidence is luckily still there for the investigation team at headquarters how it happened, a very clear video of the crash. The mothership doesn't seem to have any damage and the pilot is ok.
cheers,
BB
3 hours ago - Update from Vestas 11th Hour Racing:
It's the coldest night of the race. 9 degrees C air and sea temp. The crew is struggling to stay warm up on deck. Dancing and taking hot drinks, thinking warm thoughts.
Nick is on a LiveX call with a group of school children from Newport. One of whom - also named Charlie - is his nephew.
"We don't know what happens if we cross this boundary zone," he says to the classroom on the other side of the world. "Maybe we'll be transported to another dimension, or maybe purgatory. We're really curious to know."
Charlie and Sifi are preparing a meal just a few feet away. As Charlie walks away with a hot bowl of chicken fajita in hand we hit a wave and he pours the entire contents on Sifi.
There's plenty going on.
"We are 2 to 3 hours from gybing off of one exclusion zone boundary to engage yet another exclusion zone boundary," says Charlie from the nav desk. "We should parallel this new obstacle for about 400nm before having to gybe down the last 200nm. Once that's complete we'll have nothing but open ocean between us and Melbourne. Ahhhhh."
I ask if there's else he wants to say.
"I also just spilled chicken fajita all over Simon and I'm very sorry."
(around 1000UTC on December 19, 2017)
Bouwe Bekking, Team Brunel: [On the injury to crew member Annie Lush]
Imagine you are having a dream and made it come true. Hours of hard work, dedication, toughness and drive you have put into a project, and you are living your dream and then all of a sudden "BANG" you are totally unexpected sidelined by an accident.
But in this case, you are still there with the team 24/7, which makes it even more unusual and then probably the worst thing is that you can't contribute in any way. Just looking and feeling helpless and lonely in a way.
I might be wrong (but I know I am not), but that is going through Anni's mind right now.
The injury is worse than expected and she has to stay in her bunk. Here is a girl who has given everything for our team and now she sees her team mates doing their sailing rotations, stacking, cooking meals, drying the bilges, serving her food and helping her get to the toilet.
What will go through your head? You feel like a burden, unnecessary ballast for the team.
Dear mom and dad of Anni: "Don't worry too much after reading this. We are a very tight unit, we have spoken beforehand that is a thing that can happen to anybody of us, but in case it happens that WE together cope with it. Anni is in very good hands, and we are all looking after her the best way we can and support her also that this doesn't get stuck into her head too much". That is what TeamBrunel is also standing for; it is all about the people!
cheers,
Bouwe
an hour ago
Xabi Fernández, MAPFRE
Hi all,
What a battle we are having with our Chinese friends of Dongfeng! I should say is good fun, but it is quite hard, to be honest.
As most of you would see we have done more than 30 gybes in around 24 hours – you can imagine not much sleep has been going on board. More than that, we had the ice limit to gybe on so we couldn’t do any mistakes on those gybes and enter the zone, so it has been full on.
Right now we are in a drag race heading ENE, making a lot of nm towards Melbourne which feels good and we have Dongfeng ahead of us. They are gaining a bit, slowly but the mileage is going up, and we are scratching our heads to keep the distance down and wait for our opportunity.
2300 nm to go and plenty of action, so we keep with the morale high as we feel we are doing a very good leg.
We keep stretching in the boats behind so that is good too.
Priorities on board are to have as much rest as possible when off watch so we can be in better form for the action coming.
We will keep you updated.
Cheers
Xabi
an hour ago
Charles Caudrelier, Dongfeng Race Team
Hello
After nine days of racing and more than 3000 miles, I start to hate the red, the boat of our Spanish friends.
I heard that Xabi is an ex-biking champion and as we say in France about biking, MAPFRE is sucking our wheel, following all our moves and waiting for an opportunity to attack. This leg since we are around the ice limit became a match racing, we probably gybe more than 30 times yesterday to stay along the ice limit to have more wind (a nightmare for the crew, gybing every hour during 30 hours means no sleep and gybing asks a lot of work on the boat, moving all weight from side to side).
More than 400KG inside the boat, and four sails. Four sails of 100 kg when they are dry but now full of water probably 50kg more each one. Gybing every hour means also you can't take off your weather gear to sleep, and you feel more and more wet and after this session, all the team was exhausted.
MAPFRE made a good come back; he was coming back with the wind and a very good speed. During 24 hours, we saw him slowly coming back and putting pressure on us. We have been working hard to find a solution to match his speed.
During these hours we tested many solutions. That’s always a difficult situation, you don’t have the speed, so you change a lot of things, modify all your habits and can become lost – and MAPFRE passed us.
And then we came back to our TRIM reference, and the speed becomes better, and with two good moves we repass him, and now he is 6 miles behind us. Nothing when watching the next six days to reach the finish line and so many choices to make for the routing.
Even Vestas and Brunel can make a comeback. Some people asked me very often which one will be the toughest leg; I always answered that the forecast will decide, you can have an easy Southern Ocean leg and a terrible tropical one like could be the next two legs. But today I hope this one will be the toughest one.
a day ago
Update from Charlie Enright on Vestas 11th Hour Racing:
The Patriots’ late-game comeback has permeated high morale amongst the troops as we begin to transit this South Indian Ocean high and return to some semblance of offshore normalcy.
Hopefully, we’re, primarily, on this board for the next 36 hours and people can catch up on sleep and recharge the batteries.
Last position report showed a big gain on Brunel, but we’ll have to give a big chunk of it back as we stay south to make sure we stay in good pressure in a strong position.
Charlie
a day ago
From Scallywag on board reporter Konrad Frost:
Its been a week since we left Cape Town and the 38-knot winds that shot us out into the Southern Ocean seem a long way away.
The crew of SHK Scallywag weren’t as mentally prepared for this leg as they could have been and with limited experience on the boat, the race was going to be tough from the outset regardless of the conditions. The crew have come together in a very impressive fashion, and I asked David Witt for his thoughts on the crew.
"I think we are getting more confident in the boat, more time in the boat. Parko and I are the only crew that had been to the Southern Ocean before, and that was a pretty hard baptism of fire for those that hadn’t the first few days, and there were a few that were a bit spooked. Now everyone is pretty comfortable with the boat and sailing it hard."
It has been hugely impressive to watch all the crew take it on but particularly the younger crew members – and to do so in some style. Both the under 30’s - Ben Piggott and Alex Gough have become extremely impressive around the boat, and on the wheel. As the race goes on, so the confidence builds and the team keep striving for more.
I sat with David as the position report came in this evening. The team have been gaining miles over the past few schedules and the hope was for more of the same.
‘’We’re gaining on the boats in front and putting miles on the boats behind so we must be doing something better, getting better.’’
With the nearest competitor Team Brunel and fourth place some 13 miles ahead its clear that David is looking further ahead. With a smile and a glint in his eye he looks at me and says ‘’27 miles to get on the podium for the first time in the Volvo Ocean Race and 3000 miles to go so, all good.’’
The team to me seem extremely relaxed, and the watches seem to be extremely cohesive. Never wanting to get too ahead of themselves though
"Just got to keep it up for 3000 miles. I’m sure very soon we are going to lose in a sked, and that’s just the way it goes. But I’m pretty confident, in the past we used to get quite upset and down about it, but we are in a much better position to be able to handle it now’."
The battle continues.
a day ago
Update from Joan Vila onboard MAPFRE:
We had very exciting and busy times over the last day, throwing lots of gybes in visual sight of Dongfeng Race Team, and including very close crosses.
It now looks that the gybing along the Ice limit line is going to come to an end later today. We are now enjoying some straight line sailing conditions again, with freshening NW winds, overcast skies, and our forecast show this will be the pattern for the next day. We remain in the limit of AIS range now with DFRT, but get a fix now and then, but we are no longer in visual contact.
With the moderate wind strengths of yesterday, the sea state has become more organised, easier to manage with the swell aligning to the wind direction. Air temperatures continue to feel warmer, although water temperatures remain cold just around 6degC.
JV
a day ago
From onboard Vestas 11th Hour Racing:
Hi There,
It has been an interesting couple of days. With the low pressure more or less behind us, we slowly have been re-adjusting to more ‘normal’ wind speeds, although what gets referred to as ‘light’ is still a fairly solid breeze with the heavy downwind conditions still fresh in our minds.
However, it wasn’t long before the new object of our attention became the Ice exclusion zone and its updated more northerly position.
Getting around it has been a fairly labour intensive process, having to gybe the boat every few hours in order to stay close to its perimeter and remain in the stronger winds to the south. This has come at the expense of sleep and has meant sleeping in foul weather gear, ready for action, at times when you can get your head down between manoeuvres.
Not surprisingly given the hard work involved, the exclusion zone has been the subject of some discussion. Its relocation has had the effect of massively compressing the fleet, and we have seen the boats behind us come in from almost one hundred miles to less than twenty.
Some on board are feeling a little hard done by, although we have also gained on the red boats in front. Others, however, who happen to be the older and wiser guys on board, and not co-incidentally the ones who have had to pick their way through icebergs in Volvos gone by, have welcomed the fact that we have been shifted north out of harm’s way!
Either way, it is what it is and now the battle for positions has been freshly intensified. We are going to have to be on our game if we are going to distance the boats behind once more and try and reel in the ones in front…
Cheers,
Si Fi
a day ago
Report from OBR James Blake on team spirit following damage to the mast track on team AkzoNobel:
The jibe was definitely not one of their smoothest manoeuvres for Team AkzoNobel.
The boat ended up laying completely on its side, the sails stacked at the back of the boat were being ripped off the side and dragged through the water. Everything on the inside of the boat that wasn’t tied down ended up on the leeward side. Part of the lower track that holds the mainsail on the mast was ripped off, and three of the top battens were broken and pierced the mainsail.
So as jibes go not the best but this is not your standard environment to turn a vessel in. The waves were around 7 metres high, and the boat was doing more than 20 knots. This is the Southern Ocean. The wind at that particular moment was above 40 knots and climbing.
The damage is done though. A few expletives were made and then there was about a minute of silence once the boat had settled and the mainsail was made safe.
This is a moment that can make or break a team. A few remarks were made that this was a week of work to fix in a good environment. The boat is currently in one of the more remote places on earth that is cold wet and currently very rough.
Then when everyone was below a few ideas started being bounced around, and within a few minutes, the plan was hatched to fix the boat and get sailing again as quickly as possible.
Jokes started to be made again, and the job took about 16 hours. It failed.
Another moment of silence, this time about 5 seconds before “right, let’s try again and do a proper job”, another 16 hours later and the boat is back sailing at 100% - trying to, first of all, to make Melbourne in time for the start of Leg 4 but also trying to chase down the pack.
It was a mix of experience, good teamwork and some strong leaders among the team that got the boat up and running as quickly as they did.
There is still a long way to go, but while the experience may not be good for results for the leg, it may play a part in results to come.